From mxr@dcs.ed.ac.uk Tue Jun 13 12:58:53 1995 Return-Path: Received: from mx4.u.washington.edu by stein2.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW95.05/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA10130; Tue, 13 Jun 95 12:58:53 -0700 Received: from stroma.dcs.ed.ac.uk by mx4.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW95.05/UW-NDC Revision: 2.31 ) id AA25922; Tue, 13 Jun 95 12:58:27 -0700 Received: from sgarbhag.dcs.ed.ac.uk by dcs.ed.ac.uk id aa28121; 13 Jun 95 20:45 BST Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 20:45:11 +0100 (BST) From: Martin Reddy To: "sci.virtual-worlds newsgroup" Subject: ANNOUNCE: UK VR-SIG 3D Object Archive Message-Id: Organisation: Department of Computer Science - University of Edinburgh Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 5272 Status: OR This message serves to announce the existence of the United Kingdom VR-SIG 3D Object Archive. The message is structured as follows: 1) Introduction to the Object Archive 2) Why have such an Archive? 3) The "Object Supermarket" 4) VRML Support 5) The Future 1) Introduction to the Object Archive ===================================== The UK VR-SIG maintains a repository of 3D Object files to support the development of virtual environments. This archive can be accessed directly via the following ftp address: ftp://ftp.dcs.ed.ac.uk/pub/objects However, there is also a Web interface to the archive available at the following URL: http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/~mxr/objects.html The archive contains several directories holding collections of 3D objects in a number of different formats. Currently these include: AutoCad (DXF), dVS (BIZ), Inventor (IV), REND386 (PLG), RenderWare (RWX), Superscape (VRT), VRML (VRML) and WorldToolKit (NFF). In addition, there are a number of converters and relevant documents (e.g. file format specs, product information etc. as well as the complete Graphics Gems I-IV). The site contains three main document files: a README file describing the goals and contents of the archive, a FORMATS file describing each of the supported formats and pointing to further information, and an INDEX file listing all of the objects in the archive along with files sizes and a short description of their contents. >From the Web page, the user can interactively query the INDEX file to see if there are any objects matching their requirement. They can also view rendered images of most of the objects stored in the archive before committing to downloading them (see section 3 below). The site is available for anyone to download material which they might find useful in their work; in addition, people are encouraged to submit their own material to the archive to help expand the facility. The site has gained industrial support from a number of companies, including Division, Criterion, Sense8 and Superscape. Many of these have generously contributed material to the site. 2) Why have such an Archive? ============================ This archive offers a collection of freely available 3D object files which have been compiled for their applicability to real-time graphics applications, and virtual reality in particular. Many object models in the public domain (for instance, at the Avalon site) are large, complex designs, usually generated from some kind of CAD package. However, the requirement of a real-time VR system necessitates small, compact representations. This repository is therefore an attempt to collate models which are more directly applicable to the needs of the VR community. 3) The "Object Supermarket" =========================== Driven by the desire for an "Object Supermarket", it is possible to view almost all of the objects stored at the UK VR-SIG archive (via the Web interface) before downloading them. Formats which can viewed in this way include the following: dVS (BIZ), Inventor (IV), REND386 (PLG), RenderWare (RWX), WorldToolKit (NFF) and VRML (VRML). In most cases, this is simply achieved by viewing a pre-rendered GIF image of the particular object. However, as will be discussed in the next section, there is now support for the interactive manipulation of objects via the Web... 4) VRML Support =============== Many of you will have heard of VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) and how it is "an open, platform-independent file format for 3D graphics on the Internet". Accordingly, the Object Archive has recently branched out to include support for VRML format objects. At the moment, this is still early days and there are only a dozen or so objects there; however, it is my intention to develop this further over the forthcoming weeks. So if you have a Web browser with a VRML extension (such the the WebSpace, EyeVRML or VRWeb viewers), then you will be able to download any of the VRML files and then interact with them in a 3D scene, as opposed to simply seeing a flat 2D image of the object from one orientation. This ability has been incorporated into the Web interface as part of the Object Supermarket facility. 5) The Future ============= We will soon be getting a new machine donated by Sun to support the development of the archive and so we will have even more processing power and disk space available for this facility in the near future. When this happens, I hope to provide support for texture maps and sound files at the site too. In conclusion, the 3D Object Archive is available for you all to use. Please feel free to have a look around, and please take the time to upload material if you feel that it will be of use to the rest of the VR community. +============================================================================+ | Martin Reddy Dept. of Computer Science | | University of Edinburgh | | e-mail : mxr@dcs.ed.ac.uk Mayfield Road, EH9 3JZ | | http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/mxr/ Tel : (0131) 650 5164 | +============================================================================+